


Psychics Are People, Too

by DinerGuy



Category: Psych
Genre: Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery, Stalker, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-06-27
Updated: 2011-06-27
Packaged: 2017-11-16 04:07:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/535314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinerGuy/pseuds/DinerGuy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lassiter takes out his frustrations about Shawn in a TV Interview. When one citizen (a devoted Shawn fan) takes this to heart, she begins to harass the head detective. At first Shawn thinks it's cute, but when a certain Irish detective doesn't show up for work and Shawn gets a creepy email that says his problems are over, it's up to Shawn to remind his new 'fan' that Grumpy Irish Detectives are people too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: No, Psych still isn't ours. And we don't steal, so no copyright infringement is intended and no profit is being made from this fanfic.

“If I were a crazy man, I would say that this mess was caused by someone running from a herd of malicious cattle,” Shawn Spencer announced to the crowd standing on one side of the crime tape. “But since I’m not crazy, I’ll have to go with the theory that very large elephants were set free from the local circus.”  
  
Carlton Lassiter didn’t bother hiding the sarcastic drawl in his voice as he spoke up. “Really? Well, Spencer, why don’t you just tell us the motive behind these supposed elephants.”  
  
“Please, Detective Lassiter.” Shawn used Lassiter’s full title, a sure sign that the next thing out of his mouth would be utter nonsense. “These are elephants. They don’t need motives. They just destroy.”  
  
“I don’t need lectures from you on the ethics of elephants,” Lassiter snapped at him.   
  
“Then what do you need a lecture on? Because I’ve got a whole book of them from my dad,” Shawn countered, his face smug as he continued to push Lassiter’s buttons.  
  
That was the last straw for Lassiter. He grabbed Shawn by the arm and dragged him inside the convenience store that had been robbed earlier that afternoon. The gunfire had blown out the large windows in the front, resulting in a glass-covered sidewalk outside.  
  
Lassiter felt the glass crunch under his feet as he ducked through the doorway. “Spencer, don’t give me that crap. This was a simple robbery. We have the suspect in custody. You waltzed your way in here, but don’t think I’m going to let you wiggle your way into this case since it’s practically closed.”  
  
“I don’t think I waltzed in here,” Shawn corrected. “I may have fox trotted, perhaps even cha-cha’d in. But no waltzing. Ask Gus. I step on his feet every time we try it out. And in regards to the ‘wiggling’ comment, I finagle; I don’t wiggle.”  
  
Maybe CSU wouldn’t notice one more shell casing in the parking lot, Lassiter thought as he waved for McNab to escort Shawn from the crime scene.  
  
“You’ll regret this, Lassie-face. I know all the answers, thanks to the spirits.” Shawn was still babbling as McNab held the crime tape up so the psychic could step to the other side.  
  
“I’m sure I won’t,” Lassiter muttered.  
  
Now that Shawn and his ridiculous antics were gone, it was time for Lassiter to give a statement to the press. As he approached the cluster of reporters pressing against the crime tape, Lassiter made sure his tie was straight.  
  
“Detective Lassiter, have any arrests been made?” the young man from  _The Santa Barbara Times_  asked.  
  
“We have a suspect in custody; all other details are under wraps for the moment. This is still an ongoing investigation,” Lassiter told him.  
  
“Detective.” The woman reporter from channel 5 held her recorder out to him. “We just saw Shawn Spencer, the police department’s psychic consultant, leave the scene. Is he helping you with this investigation?”  
  
Lassiter scowled; of course these muckrakers would ask about Spencer. “Mr. Spencer was not hired for this case. His particular brand of investigation was not needed,” he told them, well aware that the sarcasm that filled his voice when he talked about Spencer’s ‘work’ was still there.  
  
“Is this case easier than those in the past?” the newspaper reporter followed up.  
  
Lassiter continued to scowl. “Mr. Spencer does not work cases because they are hard.”  
  
“Then why is he not hired on every case?”  
  
“Shawn Spencer is a department resource that if it were up to me, would not exist. He consistently puts himself in positions which could cause the case he is working on to be thrown out of court.” Before the next reporter could ask a question, Lassiter turned and stalked off. He needed to start processing the paperwork to charge his suspect.

* * *

In all the commotion, neither Shawn nor Lassiter noticed the young woman in jeans and a plaid shirt standing in the group of on-lookers. She was carrying a notebook and taking furious notes about the crime scene while watching Lassiter intently. Once the detective was out of sight, she headed for her car. She had a website to update.

* * *

_Dear SS.net,_  
 __  
I have some exciting news for you! No, I didn’t get an interview with the Psychic himself; his office still hasn’t returned my calls. I managed to get to a crime scene today before he was gone. He gave one of his normal speeches. To us it may have seemed convoluted and lacking of sense, but I know that he pointed the police officers in the right direction. __  
  
Speaking of police officers, did anyone catch the interview Detective Carlton Lassiter gave to channel 9 tonight? I would say that the Head Detective doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Without Shawn Spencer, the SBPD wouldn’t have been able to solve three-fourths of the cases it has over the past five years. __  
  
I decided that in honor of SS.net’s fifth anniversary and in order to promote awareness of the many talents of Shawn that we, as fans, should send Detective Lassiter some emails or letters and let him know exactly how we feel about his latest interview. He needs to understand that even if he has some weird personal grudge against Shawn that he can’t dismiss the genius and insight that Shawn brings to the table. __  
  
Be sure to get your emails to me, and I’ll pass them on anonymously via the site email to Detective Lassiter.  
~ Laura 

* * *

“Dude, I have my own letter writing campaign?” Shawn was looking over Gus’ shoulder at the computer screen.  
  
“A creepy one. Have you seen the rest of this website?” Gus asked.  
  
“Gus, there is nothing wrong with naming a website after someone you admire. ShawnSpencer.net has a certain ring to it,” Shawn assured him. “Anyways, has she actually been calling us?” Shawn was rereading the latest post on the front page.  
  
Gus shook his head. “Not that I know of.” Shawn didn’t say anything, but Gus could see the wheels turning in his best friend’s head. “Oh, no, you are not calling this girl. She is crazy, Shawn. Crazy and obsessed.”  
  
“Fine, I won’t call her,” Shawn promised.  
  
Gus sighed. “We should probably head down to the station and see if Lassiter’s gotten any emails. Plus the chief hasn’t given us our W-2 yet.”  
  
“What do we need a W-2 for? Are the doors to the closet stuck again?”  
  
“That’s WD-40, Shawn. And we need our W-2 so we don’t get arrested for not filing our taxes.” Gus rolled his eyes.  
  
“Oh, that’s less exciting. We should get frozen yogurt on the way over.”  
  
“You know that’s right.” Gus fistbumped his friend and unlocked the door to the Blueberry.

* * *

“Chief, this is ridiculous!” Lassiter was beside himself as he looked at his email inbox. There were over 400 emails all containing the same subject line. ‘Shawn Spencer is a Valuable Department Resource’.  
  
“I’ll agree that it is a problem,” the chief concurred. “But you have to admit that Mr. Spencer has some ferocious fans.”  
  
“Thank you for the alliteration,” Lassiter replied, sarcastically. “Chief,” he added quickly when Vick raised an eyebrow at him.  
  
“We’ll ignore it for now,” the chief told him. “Hopefully this is the last of the matter.”  
  
“I’ve never even heard of this Laura person.” Juliet spoke up from where she and McNab were looking at something on her computer.  
  
“None of these are signed; we don’t have any names ...” Lassiter trailed off when he saw his partner wasn’t looking at him.  
  
“I looked up the website that those emails came from.” Juliet waved him over to the screen.  
  
“That’s creepy,” McNab observed. “It’s like a shrine that a serial killer dedicates to their obsession.”  
  
“Only a lot more disturbing,” Lassiter told him. “Chief, if this is the kind of behavior that provoked those emails, I have every right to file a restraining order against them.”  
  
“You just said that none of the emails were signed, Carlton.” The chief shook her head. “We don’t know who these people are, and until we do, they are nothing more then a nuisance.” She headed back to her office.  
  
“She says it’s a nuisance; maybe I should just forward them all to her,” Lassiter grumbled as he looked back at the website. “This crazy person has written true crime novels about Spencer?”  
  
Juliet nodded. “There’s also this.” She clicked on another section of the website.  
  
Lassiter made a face of disgust but didn’t look away from the screen. “What the heck is that?”  
  
“That’s not right ...” Buzz trailed off as he looked closer at the screen.  
  
“Apparently, it’s called fanfiction.” Juliet used the mouse to scroll through a list of the stories. “They’re made up cases.”  
  
“And made up relationships.” Lassiter’s face was just as disgusted and confused as he read some of the summaries. “This girl is crazy.”  
  
“What’s a ‘shipper’?” McNab asked. “And why do they ‘ship’ Laura and Shawn?”  
  
“I don’t know what that is, but it sounds disturbing,” Lassiter grumbled.  
  
“Disturbing like a crab shedding its exoskeleton or disturbing like your hair in that picture?” Shawn pointed to the screen.   
  
None of the three police officers had noticed the psychic, and when he spoke they all jumped in surprise and looked to see Shawn and Gus standing behind them, both carrying a bright orange paper cup containing frozen yogurt.  
  
“Darn it, Spencer, it’s like watching people sleep,” Lassiter snapped, not happy to have been caught unaware. “And that picture is from almost two years ago.”  
  
“Well I’m glad you see the error of your hairstyle. 20/20 near-sight and all that.”  
  
“Hindsight,” Gus muttered.  
  
“Yes, 20/20 hindsight. That’s what I said.” Shawn nodded.  
  
“Shawn this is serious,” Juliet tried to reason with him. “This girl is infatuated with you.”  
  
Shawn gave a laugh and turned to Gus. “I sense a tinge of jealousy in the fair Juliet’s voice.” He held out his hand for a fist bump.  
  
Gus didn’t return the fist bump with his normal enthusiasm. “I don’t know, Shawn. Juliet has a point. This girl seems pretty crazy. There are some pictures on there that she couldn’t have taken without being a stalker.”  
  
“At least Guster has his head on right in this situation.”  
  
“She’s not crazy, just devoted,” Shawn argued.  
  
“Obsessed,” Lassiter countered.  
  
“Passionate!” Shawn corrected him.  
  
“You know what, Spencer. You can have your little fan club, just make sure and tell them to leave me alone,” Lassiter snapped and headed for his desk.  
  
Gus checked his watch. “I’d better head out; I need to finish up my route today.”  
  
“Buddy, we’re going goofy golfing,” Shawn objected.  
  
“Saturday,” Gus promised and headed for the door.  
  
“McNab, where are my reports?” Lassiter snapped, bringing the rookie cop out of his study of ShawnSpencer.net.  
  
“I-I’ll go get those, sir,” MaNab stuttered and headed for the front desk.  
  
“Seems everyone has to work,” Shawn sighed. “I guess I’ll go get a Twix bar and eat it all by myself.”  
  
“Just be careful, Shawn. This girl is unsettling,” Juliet reminded him. She gave him a smile, but Shawn could see the concern in her eyes.  
  
“Scout’s honor, Jules. I already promised Gus I wouldn’t call her.”

* * *

_Spencerites have I got some news for you!_

  
I almost fell off my chair when I checked my email this afternoon. Apparently our letter writing campaign to Detective Lassiter has paid off. Although I have yet to receive word that Detective Lassiter has acknowledged the usefulness of Shawn, I did get an email from..... *drumroll* The Psychic himself! I was so excited I’m sure the neighbors wondered if I was being murdered. After collecting myself, I had to decide when and where our interview should be. I know, I know, half of you would tell me the bedroom, lit by candle light. Of course, I won’t be doing that any time soon ;). I will be meeting with him for a cup of coffee. I won’t tell you when or where, I don’t need my first interview with Shawn to be interrupted as he is mobbed by fans. I’ll let you know how everything goes!  
  
~ Laura


	2. Chapter 2

He had only promised Gus and Juliet he wouldn’t call Laura, Shawn was reassuring himself as he parked his bike outside of Starbucks that afternoon. He had made no promises about emailing her. Besides, actors had multiple crazy fans that wrote them emails all the time and they never were attacked in a Starbucks.  
  
He perused the coffee shop through the window as he took off his helmet. There were the typical patrons; a college student with half a dozen textbooks laid out in front of him, an older couple admiring the art on the walls, and then there was a girl all by herself in the corner, typing furiously on a laptop. She was probably in her late 20’s and was wearing a flowered dress. That had to be Laura, Shawn thought to himself as he opened the door.

* * *

 _This is it, Spencer fans! I’m sitting in Starbucks waiting for Shawn to show up. I would have ordered him a drink already, but he’s been very mysterious about what he drinks. I bet he’ll ride his motorcycle here; he always looks so sexy riding that thing. OMG, he just walked through the door!!!!!! More to come after my interview! He is so much more attractive in person! I mean I know I’ve seen him before, but this is when he’s coming to talk to me specifically! Okay, shutting down the laptop and trying to compose myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_  
 _  
~Laura_  

* * *

Shawn sauntered confidently into the coffee shop and over to the table where Laura was closing the computer in front of her. She looked up as he approached, and the look in her eyes could only be described as pure glee.  
  
Shawn pulled off his sunglasses, the way the one detective did on TV. Gus always yelled at him when he did it, but Gus wasn’t here at the moment. “Unless my psychic powers are letting me down today, I’d say your name is Laura and you’re here for the best interview of your life.” He grinned and sat down across from her and held out his hand.  
  
She nodded before all the words were even out of Shawn’s mouth. “Yes. I’m Laura.” She shook his hand just as furiously as she was nodding. “I would have ordered you a drink, but I didn’t know what you wanted. You’re very secretive about what you drink.”  
  
“Don’t worry about it,” Shawn assured her. “I’m just going to grab something and then we can chat about whatever you want.” He winked. “Don’t go anywhere.”  
  
Laura watched Shawn walk up to the counter and was about to send a tweet with her phone when she noticed that Shawn had left his iPhone sitting on the table. She glanced back up at the psychic, who was casually leaning on the counter, chatting with the barista as he waited on his order. She quickly grabbed the phone and copied down a couple of numbers out of the contacts list. If Detective Lassiter wasn’t responding to the emails, maybe it was time for a more vocal approach.

* * *

“I’m telling you, O’Hara, it just isn’t right.” Lassiter was still scrolling through the web archives of ShawnSpencer.net.  
  
“I’m well aware it isn’t right.” Juliet sighed as she went through the reports from that afternoon. Lassiter’s suspect had cracked when he saw the detective come in the interrogation room and her partner had been spending all of his time since then on the creepy website.  
  
Lassiter’s phone rang and he picked it up off the hook. “Carlton Lassiter.”  
  
“Shawn Spencer is super awesome,” the voice on the other side said quickly.  
  
“Excuse me?” Lassiter was irritated, but there was no response. The caller had hung up.  
  
Lassiter glared at the receiver and then put it down. Within seconds, it rang again.  
  
“Detective Lassiter,” Lassiter greeted the caller.  
  
“Spencer rocks!” A different voice informed him and then hung up.  
  
Lassiter slammed the phone back on the hook.  
  
Juliet looked over to her partner and was going to ask him what was going on when the phone rang again.  
  
“Lassiter,” her partner snapped. Then slammed the phone back down.

* * *

Three hours later, the chief walked over to Lassiter’s desk. The normally organized work space was a flurry of reports. The phone was unplugged and it appeared Lassiter had thrown the thing against the pillar next to his desk. He cell phone was in pieces near Juliet’s desk.  
  
“Detective?” The chief surveyed the damage.  
  
“They won’t stop calling me!” he shouted from under the desk, where he was trying to unplug his computer. “I had over 500 new emails in my inbox, and they somehow got my cell number.”  
  
Vick looked to Juliet who nodded, confirming her partner’s story.  
  
“I don’t know how; all our direct numbers are unlisted. McNab said he didn’t field any of the calls.”  
  
“I don’t how she did it,” Lassiter said, crawling out from under his desk. His hair was sticking at weird angles, tie loose, shirt smudged with dust. “I never give anyone my phone number. The only people outside the department who have it are Spencer and Guster, and they are under oath not to give it to anyone ...” Lassiter trailed off as realization hit. “Spencer,” he growled and grabbed for Juliet’s desk phone. “That stupid e-mail campaign wasn’t enough for him.” He was talking to himself at this point.  
  
“Detective.” The chief had had enough. “Put the phone down. We have no proof that this Laura is the one who has been prank calling you.”  
  
“It’s her. It has to be her,” Lassiter snapped.  
  
The chief frowned. “Detective, I’m sure McNab can file your reports. I suggest you go get a new phone and head home.” She said the word ‘suggest’ but there was no suggestion in her voice. Her tone was final.  
  
Lassiter opened his mouth to object but decided against arguing with the chief when she gave him another glare. He grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and headed for the door.  
  
“O’Hara, seeing as there are no open cases for you to work on at the moment. I’m sure you could spend some of your free time looking into who this Laura person is,” the chief commented before heading to her office.  
  
Juliet was already ahead of her, typing the IP address for ShawnSpencer.net in her computer.

* * *

By the time Lassiter returned from buying a new cell phone and called the tech department to install a new one at his desk, it was nearing the end of the day. He grumbled to himself as he remembered the reports from the robbery that morning.

  
Buzz greeted the head detective as he approached the front desk. “Did you get that new phone, sir?”  
  
“Yes, McNab,” Lassiter growled. “And mark my words, it’s going to be coming out of Spencer’s pocket. He needs to do something about that fan of his before something happens. Something worse than just a couple of phones get ruined.”  
  
“She seems very persistent,” Buzz commented.  
  
“Persistent is a nice way of putting it. More annoying than Spencer is another way of explaining it.” Lassiter initialed a few forms.  
  
Juliet came up behind them. “Are you still getting those emails?”  
  
Lassiter scowled, “The tech department set up a secondary email for me, but the emails stopped coming on mine. They think it has more to do with storage limits on the system rather than the emails actually stopping.”  
  
“Did they get you a new number for your phone?” Juliet felt horrible for her partner. She knew he didn’t actually hate Shawn, but the unorthodox antics of the psychic rubbed her partner the wrong way.  
  
“The phone company changed the cell phone, and Gerald downstairs changed my extension number.”  
  
“Let me put those in my phone,” Juliet pulled out her own department-issued cell phone.  
  
“You can have them,” Lassiter told her, jotting the numbers down on a post-it. “But so help me, if you give them to Spencer-”  
  
“I’m not going to give them to Shawn or Gus,” Juliet said shortly. “I’m not a first year officer.” She chewed on her lip as she entered the numbers into her phone. “I’m just worried about Shawn; you don’t think he’ll actually try to contact this girl, do you?”  
  
Lassiter shook his head. “No telling. I wouldn’t put it past Spencer. His ego apparently is never big enough.” He thought about it for a second. “And you know what, he can have her as long as the two of them leave me alone.” When Juliet didn’t respond, Lassiter continued. “Don’t worry about it, he’s an adult ... according to the state of California, and he can take care of himself.”  
  
“Are you sure about that?” Buzz asked. “His fan just updated the website.”  
  
The two detectives crowded behind the desk to view the monitor as Buzz pulled up the newest update.

* * *

 _Spencerites,_  
 _  
Today was officially the best day of my life! Shawn Spencer isn’t like those celebrities you read about, where they’re only concerned with themselves and their public image. Shawn was really, really nice. He was more charming than I could have imagined. We talked about everything, from his cases with the police to some of the private work he’s done over the years. He even wanted to know some details about me!!! :-) If every interview I have with him goes this smoothly, I think we can expect bells to be ringing in the next few months! Wedding bells that is. ;-) _ _  
  
In other news, I launched phase two of the Shawn Spencer Appreciation Project. If you received a special text from me this afternoon, I hope you made good use of the information given to you._   _  
  
Hugs and Kisses from Shawn!_   _  
_ _\- Laura_

* * *

“See, it’s an entire website named after him.” Gus had pulled up the site on the office computer to show Henry Spencer. When Shawn hadn’t come back by the time Gus was done with his route, the pharmaceutical rep had called his best friend’s father for advice.  
  
“This girl has delusions,” Henry agreed as he read through the posts.  
  
“Shawn thinks this is all a game.” Gus had a worried look on his face. “He’s flattered that she wants to have his babies.”  
  
“It was the same way when he was on the soap opera,” Henry grumbled. “I would have thought that after being shot at by a nail gun he would have learned that obsessive fans are dangerous, but apparently learning that lesson is just as hard as eighth grade geometry.”  
  
“I know Juliet is worried about it too.” Gus was still staring at the screen.  
  
“We’ve got to do something,” Henry told him, shaking his head.  
  
Gus clicked back to the front page and groaned. “There’s a new post. I told him not to call her!”  
  
“You and I both know that Shawn doesn’t listen to half of what we say.” Henry leaned in to read over the other man’s shoulder. “Gus, we need to talk to him ... We need to talk to him without any distractions, and we need to do it now, before he completely loses his head about this whole thing or else he could get hurt.”

* * *

 


	3. Chapter 3

Gus was pacing the office the next morning. He knew Shawn came by the office around eleven every morning to check the mail and see if there were any private cases on the answering machine.  
  
“Just sit down, Gus,” Henry grumbled at him. The elder Spencer was there at Gus’ request to try to talk some sense into Shawn. “You’ll wear a hole in the floor.”  
  
Gus opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by the office door opening.  
  
“Spencer, tell your crazy friend to stop bothering me,” Lassiter snapped as he and Juliet walked back to where Gus and Shawn’s desks were.  
  
Both detectives stopped short when they saw only Gus and Henry in the office.  
  
“Where is Shawn?” Juliet asked, her face confused. She was quickly forgetting her prepared lecture for Shawn about the dangers of fanatics.  
  
“Not here yet.” Gus crossed his arms.  
  
“What are you two doing here?” Henry asked.  
  
“We’re here to tell Spencer the girl running his website is a nut and he should stay away from her.” Lassiter ran a hand over the windowsill and then sat on it once he had cleared the dust off, wiping his hand on the chair next to him.  
  
“We’re here to try to talk to Shawn about Laura and how she might not be the best person to associate with,” Juliet translated.  
  
“What are you doing here?” Lassiter asked.  
  
“Same thing,” Henry stated. “Did you read her letters? I’m surprised he wasn’t kidnapped yesterday.”  
  
“Technically they’re blog posts,” Gus corrected.  
  
“I don’t care if they’re Facebook updates or disturbing tweets. The person behind them is insane and a danger to society,” Lassiter declared.  
  
“We all agree on that,” Henry told him. “We just don’t know how to convince Shawn. He’s always loved people telling him about how wonderful he is.”  
  
“Which clearly explains his rampant ego.” Lassiter snarked.  
  
Juliet shot her partner a disapproving look. “Compliments are one thing, but this Laura has taken it to a whole new level.”  
  
The door squeaked just then, and all four turned towards the front of the office as Shawn walked in.  
  
“Gus, I need -” Shawn stopped upon seeing the group gathered around the desks. “Hey, buddy, dad, Lassie, Jules …” He trailed off as he noticed that everyone looked tense and worried. “Why didn’t anyone tell me we were having a party? I would have stopped and picked up a cake. Or at least a pineapple.”  
  
Gus shifted his weight to the other foot. “Shawn, we need to talk.”  
  
“Yes, Gus, clearly someone needs to work on their communication skills,” Shawn grinned. “Is today someone’s half birthday or did Lassie beat his record of not firing off his gun for a whole day?”  
  
“Quit with the jokes, Spencer,” Lassiter snapped.  
  
“Shawn, we just think that maybe you’re getting a little ... attached to Laura,” Juliet said quietly.  
  
“Laura is not an axe-wielding psychopath,” Shawn objected. “She simply recognizes awesome talent when she sees it - as opposed to some people.” He raised an eyebrow at Lassiter.  
  
The detective gave a laugh and shook his head. “Talent? Spencer, this is beyond appreciation for your shenanigans.”  
  
“You’re right,” Shawn agreed, “she appreciates my abs as well.”  
  
The four other people in the room made a face.  
  
“Shawn,” Henry crossed his arms, “you do realize this woman’s fixation with you is not normal? She’s what a rational person would call a stalker.”   
  
Shawn frowned. “Did it ever cross your minds that you guys are jealous of me? Because I have a fan club and Lassie just has an anti-fan club?”  
  
Lassiter snorted. “I would hardly call that a club. More like a mob. It’s only Laura and the five crazy groupies that were calling me all day yesterday.”  
  
Shawn’s smile faltered for a moment. “What others?”  
  
“Have you actually looked at the site? Beyond the front page where she talked about your hair for fifteen paragraphs?” Henry asked.  
  
“Have you?” Shawn crossed his arms.  
  
“Yes,” all four of them chorused.  
  
“Spencer, this girl has delusions that you’re about ready to get married,” Lassiter continued. “And what’s worse is that she’s somehow convinced at least five other people that this is true. My phone was ringing non-stop yesterday.”  
  
“Until he threw it at the wall,” Juliet added.  
  
Shawn raised an eyebrow and grinned.  
  
Lassiter glared at his partner. “I did that because those crazies wouldn’t stop calling.”  
  
“Laura and the crazies?” Shawn gave a laugh. “Seriously, Lassifrass, that sounds like a band from the 50’s, not a threat to my well being.”  
  
“Shawn, don’t you think you should take this seriously?” Gus asked, frowning at his friend. “Don’t you remember what happened on the set of Explosion Gigantesca de Romance?”  
  
“I ate delicious sandwiches and solved a murder,” Shawn shrugged. “You guys act like I’m not old enough to take care of myself.”  
  
“You’ve never been old enough to take care of yourself.” Henry sounded frustrated and worried.  
  
“I’m not five years old!” Shawn protested. “I’m older than thirty; that’s plenty old enough to take care of myself.”  
  
Lassiter had heard enough. “You know what, Spencer? You can deal with her however you see fit, but if you want my advice or the advice of anyone in this room, get a restraining order. It’s the only way to make sure nothing happens.” He turned to leave. “C’mon, O’Hara, let’s go.” He headed for his car.   
  
Juliet shot Shawn one last worried look as she followed her partner out the door. “Shawn, think about it. This Laura might appear normal, but there’s got to be more to her. Her website is proof of that.”  
  
“Don’t worry, Jules.” Shawn gave her a reassuring grin. “I’ve got it all under control.”  
  
“Yeah.” Henry rolled his eyes. “Because meeting an insane woman in the local Starbucks is what ‘under control’ looks like.”  
  
“And you’re an expert in the subject?” Shawn shot back. “Forget it; I’ll just work from home today.”  
  
“You don’t usually do any work here,” Gus muttered as Shawn let the door shut behind him.  
  
“Way to man up and tell him that to his face, Gus.” Henry shook his head and then sighed. “Just keep an eye on him. I’m worried about this one.”

* * *

 _Dear Spencerites,_  
 __  
Today I’m coming to you with some news that saddens me. I was talking with Shawn over IM today and he told me that his friends think he should file a restraining order against me. Can you believe something like that?? Apparently Detective Lassiter is the one who brought up the subject and everyone else agreed with him!  
  
I think phase three of the Shawn Spencer Appreciation Project should begin. If people can’t accept Shawn for his talents out right, maybe it’s time to teach them to appreciate him.  
  
I might be away for a day or so, but never fear! I’ll be back before you know it!  
  
\- Laura  


* * *

Lassiter was flipping through his key ring as he headed for his front door. It had been a long day at the station after he and O’Hara had left the Psych office, and he was more than ready to clean his gun and then read through some of his gun magazines to relax.  
  
Lassiter had his key in the lock when he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He spun and drew his gun simultaneously. “Spencer, so help me, you know I almost shot you the last time you played ding-dong ditch.”  
  
“Oh, don’t worry, Detective Lassiter,” a small feminine voice said as a woman in her 20’s stepped of the bushes and up to the porch. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. My name is Laura Peters.”  
  
“I think I know enough about you.” Lassiter didn’t holster his gun but lowered it to his side. “What in the name of Sweet Lady Justice are you doing here?”  
  
“You don’t know?” Laura asked. “I’m disappointed in you, Detective; I would have thought you’d pay more attention to my website. All those blog posts were about Shawn, but somehow you managed to get your name into every single one.”  
  
Lassiter glared at her. “I’m aware that my email box is overflowing and my phone numbers have been changed.”  
  
Laura shook her head. “It’ll take more than that to stop us. Changing your phone number won’t stop us from convincing you of how valuable Shawn Spencer is to the department. We’ll find other ways to communicate with you.”  
  
“Obviously.” Lassiter was beyond annoyed at this point. He should be cleaning his gun and making himself dinner at this point, not arguing with a romantically challenged, delusional psychopath on his porch. He might also have to consider moving again, now that she knew where he lived.  
  
“You do understand that Shawn solves cases for you.” Laura’s voice was eerily sweet and calm.  
  
“Spencer can flaunt around a crime scene as much as he wants; it doesn’t make his psychic bull crap any less annoying or ridiculous.”  
  
Laura giggled. “I wish you could hear yourself, Detective. If you could only see what Shawn does without your personal grudge, I think you’d appreciate him.”  
  
Lassiter’s eyes narrowed. “What personal grudge?”  
  
“He outed your affair with Detective Lucinda Barry to the entire department. You’ve hated him since then. You’ve never respected his methods or his results.”  
  
“Barry has nothing to do with my feelings for Spencer,” Lassiter ground out. He was finding it hard to be civil with this girl any longer. “You know what? Just leave. I have police work to do in the morning. Good night, Miss Peters.”   
  
Lassiter turned to head into his house and then everything went black.

* * *

 _ShawnSpencer .net,_  
  
I know I said I might be gone for a while, but I just wanted to pop in to tell you that phase three is well under way. If Detective Lassiter doesn’t appreciate Shawn for his talents after this, then he is a lost cause and shouldn’t work for the department at all.  
  
On an unrelated note (I know I never ever go off topic here, but bear with me) does anyone know how to get blood out of clothes?   
  
Talk to You All Later!  
\- Laura


	4. Chapter 4

Juliet was sitting at her desk, staring across the station at her partner’s empty workstation. He hadn’t been there when she had arrived at 7:30 that morning. At first she thought that Lassiter was just at the shooting range or at his therapy appointment for once, but now it was almost ten and she still hadn’t seen her partner.  
  
She had called his cell phone at least a dozen times, but she must have been in such a hurry to put his new number in her phone the day before that she entered the wrong number. Whenever she dialed the one she had, she only got an error message from the phone company saying that the number was not associated with any account.   
  
She grabbed her cell phone to call Lassiter’s number again, just in case she hadn’t hit the right buttons the last twelve times. Before she could dial the first number, Shawn and Gus hurried through the front door of the station. They glanced around worriedly, then made a beeline for Juliet’s desk.  
  
“Shawn!” Juliet looked relieved to see him. “Have you talked to Lassiter today?”  
  
Shawn shot a look at Gus and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “Jules, I think you need to look at this email Laura sent me this morning.” He handed her the piece of paper he’d been carrying.  
  
“You’re still talking to her?” Juliet asked, taking the paper from him, the tone of her voice clearly disapproving of Shawn’s actions.   
  
“Just read the email,” Shawn muttered, ducking his head.

* * *

 _My Dearest Shawn,_  
  
I hope your morning is going great! Did you get the flowers I sent to your apartment? I still think it’s awesome that you live in an old dry cleaners.    
  
I know you were so frustrated with Detective Lassiter not taking you seriously. He’s probably just jealous that you have such a loyal and devoted fan ;-)  
  
I just wanted to let you know that I talked with Detective Lassiter last night and I can assure you that everything is going to be alright.   
  
All your problems have been taken care of!  
  
Much Love,  
Laura

* * *

Juliet looked back up from the note, Shawn and Gus’ expressions mirroring her own feelings. “Shawn, Lassiter hasn’t been in to work today.” She looked over at her partner’s empty desk again.  
  
Gus’ eyes opened even wider and he slapped Shawn on the arm. “See, Shawn, I told you that girl was trouble.”  
  
“Guys, we don’t know that Lassiter is in trouble,” Shawn tried to alleviate their fears. “Maybe he’s just sick?”  
  
“He came to work last year with walking pneumonia,” Juliet reminded him. “The chief had to order him home, and even then he kept calling me to have me run leads.”  
  
“We’ll just go check out Lassie’s apartment. He’ll be there and everything will be alright; Laura had absolutely nothing to do with this,” Shawn assured them. He hoped his face was more confident looking then he felt.  
  
“Speaking of Laura, the chief had me check up on her.” Juliet grabbed a file from her desk drawer. “Her name is Laura Peters, she’s 26 years old and she has a bachelor’s degree in web design from the University of California, Santa Barbara.”  
  
“She’s smart and dedicated,” Shawn supplied.  
  
“She’s also the proud owner of three restraining orders,” Juliet told him. “All three are various minor celebrities from different towns around the state.”  
  
“I am not a minor celebrity!” Shawn protested.  
  
“She’s a serial stalker!” Gus exclaimed. “She’s been stalking these other people and now she might have killed Lassiter.”  
  
“Please, Gus, you make it sound like she has a shrine set up in her living room devoted to me. She’s just a normal post-college person with time to spare in the department of writing about people. People like that don’t kill people.”  
  
“Shawn, normal people have jobs and lead productive lives. They do not create websites and obsess over other people and start massive email campaigns in support of their obsession.”  
  
“I don’t think we can even use the word normal and Laura in the same sentence,” Juliet agreed.  
  
Shawn crossed his arms. “Fine. Let’s go to Lassie’s and prove he’s alright and then we’ll all go about our business. I have a date with the season premier of  _American Duos_  tonight.”  
  
Juliet checked her gun and then made sure her badge was clipped to her belt. “I’ll drive,” she said and headed for the door.  
  
“Shotgun!” Shawn exclaimed, pushing past Gus to beat his friend to the car.

* * *

Within fifteen minutes, the three were pulling into Lassiter’s driveway. Juliet turned the car off, and they exited the vehicle and headed for the front door.  
  
“His car is still here.” Gus pointed to the Crown Vic parked under the carport.  
  
Shawn’s eyes were darting around, taking in every detail along the sidewalk as they neared the front porch. He spotted the slightly trampled bushes, Lassiter’s keys still in the lock, and a small smear of what looked like blood on the welcome mat.  
  
“Lassie didn’t make it into his apartment last night.” Shawn raised a hand to his head as Juliet reached out her hand to grab the keys from the lock. “And I’m sensing that some seriously dark goings-on happened here.” He shared a look with Gus, who had gone slightly pale at the sight of the blood stain. “I know why Lassieface isn’t at work today.”  
  
“He’s been kidnapped,” Juliet whispered.  
  
“I was going to say he’s been Lassie-napped, because Lassie is not a kid and I’m not sure if he’s ever been one,” Shawn told her.  
  
“Shawn, stop with the jokes,” Gus snapped at him. “We need to find out where Laura might be keeping him.”  
  
“Gus, don’t be eleven of the twelve angry men. Why do you automatically blame Laura?” Shawn objected. “For all we know, it could have been anybody in Lassie’s black book of arrests. He’s got tons of enemies. A fact he’s really proud of.”  
  
Gus raised an eyebrow. “Do you really need any other proof, Shawn? She sent you an email practically admitting to this!”  
  
“I’ll call McNab and get her address and some back up. If she’s holding him there, this will all be over soon,” Juliet told them, pulling out her cell phone.  
  
“No need,” Shawn spoke up. “I can give you directions.”  
  
“Please tell me you have not been to her house,” Gus said in concern.  
  
“Gus, please, I would never go to her house. We meet at Starbucks like civilized people. She just has this weird obsession with giving me notes and maps to things.”  
  
“It amazes me you can recognize she’s obsessed with maps, but you don’t think she’s crazy.”  
  
“Guys!” Juliet was already at the car. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Lassiter’s first thought as he slowly woke up was that his head hurt. Maybe he had gone to a bar after work and had too much to drink, but he remembered pulling into the driveway and parking the Crown Vic perfectly under the carport so that nothing would get it dirty.  
  
Trying to think through things was making Lassiter’s head hurt worse, but when he tried to rub it, he found his hands were handcuffed behind his back.  
  
Immediately Lassiter’s brain started to go through every reason he would be handcuffed. Maybe he’d finally been found by someone in his arrests book. That had to be it, or maybe the check-out girl from the A&P had found out she was on his crap list.  
  
“Detective,” a female voice called out to him in a small sing-song voice.  
  
Lassiter’s eyes snapped forward and then the lights went on in the room. He had to blink a few times to get his eyes to adjust to the sudden light.  
  
“How’s your head, Detective?” the sing-song voice asked. “I tried to bandage it up the best I could, but I never was very good at first-aid in school.”  
  
That’s when everything came back to Lassiter. “Miss Peters, need I remind you that kidnapping on its own is a felony offense, but kidnapping an officer of the law is worse?”  
  
“Oh, I wouldn’t call this kidnapping.” Laura came around in front of Lassiter. “Think of it more as forced vacation. An educational field trip if you want. Sorry about the bump on the head; I just didn’t think you’d come here of your own free will.”  
  
“You got that right,” Lassiter muttered. “What did you hit me with?” He pulled against the handcuffs again, frustrated to feel them looped around the chair in which he was sitting. A chair that felt like it was made out of some kind of metal.  
  
“That doesn’t really matter,” Laura told him. “Now, we don’t have a lot of time, so let’s get started with the first lesson.” She set a laptop on the table in front of Lassiter. “This is a video I like to call ‘Shawn Spencer: an Introduction to the Man and the Psychic’. I worked for days on this one.” She put a dvd into the disc drive and left the room once it started playing.  
  
Lassiter wanted to ignore the computer in front of him, but his morbid curiosity made it impossible to look away. Laura had created a biographical video of Spencer’s time in the department. The first cases were illustrated by photographs, most of which appeared to have been taken from various newspapers, and some news footage.  
  
“This is the first time I met Shawn.” Laura had returned and was now sitting on a chair far enough away from Lassiter that the detective couldn’t do anything. “You were there too.” She pointed at the screen, munching on a handful of popcorn. “I was speed dating at the time. Silly old me didn’t know that I would meet my soul mate that night.”

* * *

“See this house looks completely normal.” Shawn motioned to the small green ranch style house as they pulled up. The black and whites had already cleared the perimeter and determined that no one was home.  
  
“Shawn, you know you can’t always judge a book by its cover.” Gus gave the house a wary look. “Mary had a really normal looking house too, until you went inside.”  
  
“Gus don’t be an eighty year old librarian who smells like prunes. Laura doesn’t have a rat named Ben or an affinity for pie,” Shawn scoffed.  
  
“Just stay behind me,” Juliet told them holding her side arm at the ready.  
  
Shawn made a face at Gus behind her back, but both men obeyed the order. They cleared the small house in a few seconds, McNab going to the left bedroom and Juliet the right. Shawn and Gus had followed Juliet, but soon McNab was calling for them.  
  
“Guys! Guys, this isn’t okay.” His voice sounded a little panicked.  
  
Juliet headed for the bedroom, fearing she would find her partner’s body. There was no body, however, just wall to wall Shawn Spencer.  
  
Shawn and Gus skidded to a halt behind her, looking around the room in a mixture of shock and horror.  
  
“There have to be over a hundred pictures,” Gus whispered as they looked around the room.  
  
“Dude, some of these are really unflattering.” Shawn was examining a section of the wall where the pictures all seemed to have leaves or other objects half in the frame.  
  
“I told you she was a stalker!” Gus looked up to see even more pictures of Shawn decorating the ceiling. “And you told me she didn’t have a shrine of you set up in her living room!”  
  
“Technically this isn’t her living room,” Shawn pointed out.  
  
“There are dvds in here.” McNab pulled open a small cabinet. “They’re all dated and have the words ‘Shawn Interview’ on them.”  
  
“We need CSU in here to look over everything.” Juliet spoke up for the first time since entering the room. She had holstered her gun. “Don’t touch anything,” she turned on Shawn as the psychic started to pick up a framed picture.  
  
“Dude, this one is a tad creepy.” He showed Gus the picture in his hands.  
  
“Is that the picture from our website?” Gus looked at it closer. “She photo-shopped herself over me! I’m supposed to be standing there next to you. The exposures don’t even match; you can tell this is fake.”  
  
“Detective.” One of the uniformed officers walked into the room, slowing a little as he saw all the pictures. “We didn’t find any clothes in the other bedroom and there’s no car in the garage.”  
  
“Shawn, you had better divine some answers as to where she might be.” Juliet rounded on the psychic.  
  
Shawn glanced around the room again; seeing himself looking back was a little unnerving. “Jules, we need to move around the house. There’s too much psychic energy in here for me to get a clear signal.” He ignored the looks Gus was shooting him and headed for the bedroom door.  
  
As he analyzed the living room, he spotted two items resting on the bookshelf along one wall. The first looked like the paper backing to a sticker and the other was a map of Goleta.  
  
“There’s a very campy vibe I’m getting from this room and it’s not the kind of campy you get with  _The Brady Bunch_.” Shawn raised a hand to his temple and closed his eyes. “We’re looking for logs, twigs, sticks, bug bites ... if Laura has kidnapped Lassie, then she might be holding him in a campground of some kind. But she’s innocent until proven guilty.” Shawn opened his eyes and looked to Juliet.  
  
“Run her phone records and her credit cards. If she’s rented anything bigger than a tool shed, I want to know,” Juliet ordered McNab. She headed for the door and glanced back to Shawn. “You had better be right about this, Shawn. This is Lassiter’s life we’re dealing with. Not some random case of missing jewelery.”


	5. Chapter 5

Lassiter had sat through countless hours of video about Spencer. The content ranged from news articles about the psychic to Laura sitting on a bed just rambling to the camera about Spencer’s various “attributes”, which were primarily physical. If Lassiter had to hear about Spencer’s perfect smile one more time, he might scream. In fact, he might scream anyway; at least it would drown out the girl’s incessant talking. Not just on the video. Laura was giving him a running commentary.  
  
The only good thing about the video was that even though Laura was talking to him, she was completely enthralled with watching it. Lassiter was able to move around a little bit without her noticing. He’d managed to loosen the metal bar around which the handcuffs were looped. With a little skill, Lassiter might be able to get out of the chair without having to dislocate one of his thumbs to slip out of the cuffs.  
  
The Laura on the video was talking about Spencer’s biceps for the twelfth time when Lassiter decided to make his move. There was a door on the other side of the room at the top of a flight of stairs. It probably led to the first floor of whatever kind of building he was in. It was hard to tell anything since the windows were covered, but Lassiter had caught a glimpse of a car through a gap in the curtains. Maybe the keys to that car would be upstairs.  
  
He glanced at Laura out of the corner of his eye and when he decided she wasn’t paying attention to him, he carefully slipped the rung of the chair from its slot. He knew once he made his move, he would have to move fast; the bar would make a lot of noise when it fell. Steeling himself, he let the metal bar fall and bolted for the door. He heard Laura make a noise of surprise, but he didn’t look back.  
  
He was halfway up the stairs before the thought crossed through his mind that he wouldn’t be able to reach the doorknob with his hands cuffed behind his back. That thought suddenly didn’t matter when Lassiter felt someone pulling on his leg, tripping him. He ignored the pain as his left side collided with the stairs and kicked out with his free leg, feeling his shoe connect with something soft. He gave a small grin of satisfaction when he heard a yelp of pain from Laura. He didn’t make a habit of kicking girls, but this girl deserved it.  
  
The only way Lassiter could think of to open the door was to just slam against it and hope that the latch wasn’t as sturdy as it looked.  
  
Lassiter didn’t have time to find out if he was right, because suddenly there was a cloth in his face and Laura was scrambling to keep it there. He tried hard to get Laura off his back, but the girl had one arm wrapped around his neck and Lassiter was still handcuffed.  
  
Once the detective went limp and stopped struggling, Laura released her hold on him. She hadn’t wanted to resort to chloroform, but Detective Lassiter was being more stubborn about the whole situation then she had thought he would be.  
  
“We’re gonna need to do something else to keep you here,” Laura said to the unconscious Lassiter, wincing as she pressed a hand against her ribs. The detective had been able to land a pretty heavy blow with his shoe, but she didn’t mind too terribly. It was all for a good cause, after all.

* * *

 _Hi Shawn!_  
 __  
I just wanted to get a quick note to you so that you don’t worry about Detective Lassiter. He and I are spending some quality time together learning about how awesome you are! Well, he is, I already knew the super power your hair holds in its perfectly sculpted shape.  
  
Don’t worry about him at all! I’ve got plenty of food and water and lots of videos to watch. He’ll be back to work, helping you out in no time!  
  
XOXO  
\- Laura  


* * *

Shawn read through the email for a third time and then clicked to open the picture attachment that Laura had sent. 

  
“Gus, don’t be mad or anything.” He waved his friend over from the other desk. They were both trying to find anything that might point them to where Lassiter was.  
  
“Why would I be mad, Shawn? I would never be mad about you letting a psychopath keep in contact with you even though she’s kidnapped a policeman,” Gus half-snapped. He was worried about the head detective, and Shawn’s flippant attitude was starting to wear on his patience.  
  
“Dude, I have to let her keep emailing me,” Shawn protested. “That’s the only way we’ll get any clues to where she’s holding Lassie.”  
  
“So now you’re saying she has Lassiter?”  
  
“Well, she did admit it to me in this email.” Shawn pointed to his computer screen.  
  
Gus’ eyes went wide as he came up beside Shawn’s chair and saw the picture Laura had sent.  
  
The picture was clearly Lassiter and a young woman. Gus was going to assume she was Laura. The detective looked irritated. Way more irritated than he had ever looked when Shawn annoyed him.  
  
“I didn’t know Lassie’s face could turn that color,” Gus murmured.  
  
“It’s probably the lighting,” Shawn said uncertainly.   
  
The detective’s face was pale, more pale than he should have been even with his Irish heritage and there was a world record bruise forming on the left side of his face, just above the cheek bone. Laura wore a bright smile on her face, either ignoring the detective’s glare or oblivious to it.  
  
“The camera is so close, there’s not much else in the picture,” Shawn mumbled to himself as he studied the image. His eyes flickered over every corner of the picture, searching for something that would let him know where the two were.  
  
Gus was looking over his friend’s shoulder as well. “What’s that there?” He pointed to the upper left hand corner.  
  
Shawn squinted and tilted his head to the side. “Is that a window?” He tilted his head the other way. “That’s a car outside the window.”  
  
“What’s that on the windshield?” Gus asked.  
  
“It’s a sticker, but all I can see is the color. Too bad we don’t have any CSI equipment. We could zoom in and get to read all those words.”  
  
“I told you to stop watching that show,” Gus frowned. “Nothing on there is realistic.”  
  
“Of course it is, Gus, why else would it still be on the air after ten years?” Shawn said distractedly, absorbed in the picture. “What kind of sticker would have trees on it? Oil change ones wouldn’t, right?”  
  
“Probably a pass for a park or a campground,” Gus commented.  
  
“Campground? Campground! Gus, she had that map of Goleta at her house!” Shawn started piecing the puzzle together. “They would have cabins for rent, wouldn’t they?”  
  
“Possibly, some of them would,” Gus said. “There’s one on my route that is just tent sites, but I know up north of us there are quite a few with cabins.”  
  
“I should go divine this for Juliet,” Shawn said, chewing his lip. “But as far as she’s concerned, I did not get another email or a picture from Laura.”  
  
Gus rolled his eyes but nodded. “The picture stays a secret, but next time you get an adoring fan, if you so much as think about meeting up with them, I’m going to lock you in a closet.”  
  
“Deal.” Shawn wasn’t really paying attention to Gus’ threats as he headed for the door.

* * *

“Detective,” McNab came over to Juliet’s desk, “the three girls from the website are down in interogation room A. You wanted me to tell you when they got here.”

  
Juliet looked up from her computer. “Yes, thanks, Buzz.” She headed for the stairs and then turned to look at the rookie. “Buzz, I could really use someone else in there. Will you help me out?”  
  
Buzz’s eyes lit up, but he quickly recovered and nodded. “Of course!”  
  
“All right then.” Juliet turned and continued down the stairs. “Let’s do this.”  
  
Using the IP addresses from the different accounts on Laura’s website, the tech department had been able to get Juliet three names and contact information for three girls from the Santa Barbara area. Jeanie Yoder, Mary Richards and Connie Webster were all in their early 20’s and Juliet was confident that if they knew anything they would confess immediately.  
  
The three girls jumped as Juliet opened the door. All three appeared both worried and confused.  
  
“Can you guys tell me why I was brought down here?” the blond one asked, her voice quiet and mouse like. “I mean, I haven’t done anything illegal... have I?”  
  
“No, Miss,” Juliet looked at her report, “Yoder, you haven’t done anything illegal. We just have some questions about the website ShawnSpencer .net.”  
  
The redhead on the end made an excited noise. “Is Shawn here? I mean, I would love to meet him in real person.” She looked eagerly at the window to the observation room.  
  
“Wait, you guys are on ShawnSpencer.net, too?” The girl in the middle looked surprised.   
  
“Are you MrsSpencer84?” the redhead asked her. “I loved your story from last month. The angst!” She made an inarticulate sound.  
  
“That’s me! But offline you can call me Connie.” The middle girl gave the redhead a fist bump.  
  
“Ladies!” Buzz half shouted, startling everyone in the room including Juliet. “We’re here because we think that Laura Peters has kidnapped Detective Lassiter.”  
  
“Kidnapped?” Jeanie sounded surprised.  
  
“Yes, kidnapped.” Juliet scowled at all three of them. “Now if you all know something, you need to tell us right now.”  
  
“She just said it was going to be about emails and phone calls. I mean, she said she had something else planned, but we thought it was a video or something.” Connie tucked a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear nervously. “We didn’t know anything about it being anything illegal.”  
  
“She said we might egg his house, but that’s just a prank, right?” Mary chewed her lip.  
  
“That’s counted as vandalism, and that’s only if Detective Lassiter didn’t shoot you for trespassing first.” Juliet frowned at them. “Is there anything that Laura has said online or in an email to any of you? Something that didn’t sit right or that might tell us where she is?”  
  
“Does she stay any place else in town?” Buzz followed up, sitting down across from the girls, settling into his good cop role.  
  
“She just has her house in town.” Jeanie fidgeted a little in her seat.   
  
“What about that time she was complaining about getting internet set up somewhere?” Connie asked, looking at the other two. “It was a big deal because the cable company was late and she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to update her wedding story.”  
  
“Oh yeah!” Mary exclaimed. “I remember that, too! And I was so glad she finally got it taken care of because that honeymoon chapter was sooooo good.”  
  
Juliet felt her stomach twist and she fought the urge to hurl right there in the interrogation room. “What kind of trouble did she have?” she asked instead.  
  
“Ummmm, it was really far from any other internet sources,” Connie supplied. “The installer guy spent like three hours hooking it up.”  
  
“Yeah, I think it was way out in the middle of nowhere.” Jeanie nodded in agreement.  
  
“Remember that fic she wrote where she and Shawn got stranded in the middle of nowhere in a car? And they didn’t have any water or anything to eat?” Mary stared at the ceiling as she thought about it.  
  
“Yes!” The other two chorused, staring off in the distance as well.  
  
“This is serious!” Buzz smacked his fist on the table making all three girls jump. “We have no idea what Laura is capable of and for all we know she’s going to kill Detective Lassiter if we don’t find her.”  
  
“Woah!” Jeanie said, holding out her hands. “Nobody said anything about killing anyone!”  
  
“Yeah! You just said he might be kidnapped.” Connie looked scared.  
  
“Well, you three had better start thinking of everything Laura said about the middle of nowhere.” Juliet leaned down and glared at them. “Because if you don’t, we can hold you here for harassment and possibly accessory to kidnapping.” She stalked out of the room, motioning for Buzz to follow her.  
  
Once the door was shut, Buzz looked at her. “Is accessory to kidnapping even a real charge?” He asked.  
  
“It will be,” Juliet muttered. “Just keep an eye on them; I need to go look for any possible leads on the middle of nowhere around here.”

* * *

“Jules!” Shawn exclaimed as he and Gus neared the junior detective’s desk, not ten minutes after she’d sat down. “The spirits are going crazy!” he proclaimed, striking a pose in front of her, arms outstretched.  
  
“Shawn thinks he knows where Lassiter might be,” Gus explained.  
  
“It’s like a game of Candy Land in my brain.” Shawn closed his eyes and his voice grew distant. “Swirly twirly gumdrops and candy cane lanes.”  
  
“Shawn,” Juliet’s voice was irritated. “I have three girls in interrogation room A that would love to mob you and take pieces of you home with them, mostly pieces of your hair. So get to the point or so help me, I will lock you in there with them.”  
  
Shawn’s eyes snapped open and panic flashed across his face. “The spirits told me that Laura might have Lassie in a cabin up near Goleta,” he said quickly, unconsciously putting a hand up to make sure his hair was still there.  
  
“Which makes sense with what the fangirls told us,” Juliet mused.  
  
“Fangirls?” Shawn looked uncomfortable with Juliet using that term.  
  
“Apparently Laura has written a wedding story about you two,” Juliet commented, using the website against Shawn. She wasn’t happy with how flippant he had been about the whole situation.  
  
Gus swallowed hard, looking slightly green around the edges. “Wedding story?”  
  
“There’s a honeymoon chapter, too. Apparently it’s all quite thrilling,” Juliet added, focused on the computer.   
  
Shawn gave Gus a worried look and then decided to get back to the case. “She’d have to have a campground with a cabin,” he said. “Not all the campgrounds would have cabins.”  
  
“It’d also be privately owned, because she had an internet connection installed there.” Juliet was scrolling through a list of campgrounds near Goleta. “Here we go. Whispy Pines campground and Happy Dale campground both have internet and private cabins. I’ll have McNab call one and I’ll call the other and see if Laura has been there recently.”  
  
“What about me and Gus?” Shawn asked.  
  
“I’m sure Connie, Jeanie and Mary would be thrilled if you offered to take them home. They might even write you a story about it,” Juliet deadpanned, not taking her eyes from the computer.  
  
Shawn frowned. “Since when did you become all Lassie-like?” He crossed his arms.  
  
“Since you got him kidnapped by a rabid fangirl,” Juliet snapped. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to make this phone call.”  
  
Gus pulled on Shawn’s arm as he headed the door. “I don’t know how you’re going to get Juliet back on your good side ever,” he commented. Shawn didn’t respond and Gus looked up to see his friend texting furiously on his phone. “Who are you texting?”  
  
“Laura. I need to know what campground she’s at.”  
  
Gus couldn’t believe his ears. “Shawn, tell me you’re joking. You can’t seriously still think this girl is any semblance of normal.”  
  
“Not completely,” Shawn told him with a shake of his head. “But Jules won’t let us help so it’s time to do what we do best.”  
  
“Enter pie-eating competitions?” Gus looked confused.  
  
“No,” Shawn said, exasperated. “We only did that twice. We need to go behind Lassie’s, or in this case Jules’ and Buzz’s, backs to solve the case.”  
  
“Only you would make that connection,” Gus sighed.  
  
“Oh look!” Shawn waved his phone at his friend. “She said her family has a cabin at Happy Dale campgrounds, but I shouldn’t worry about heading up there. Isn’t that sweet of her?”  
  
“Sweet like a poisoned lollipop is sweet,” Gus muttered as he started up the car.  
  
“Dude, don’t be the fat little German kid in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. We need to help Lassie out. I think I owe him this,” Shawn protested.  
  
“You think?” Gus snorted.  
  
“Yes, I do think; now c’mon. I want to stop for smoothies before we head up to Goleta. You know they don’t have a Jamba Juice there.”

* * *

Laura shoved her phone in the face of the half-awake Lassiter. “See! Shawn is going to come help me prove to you how awesome he is.” She was grinning.  
  
“Sorry if I don’t share your enthusiasm; I just was drugged by a psychopath,” Lassiter snapped. The woozy state he was in was eliminating any filter he might have had while talking to her.  
  
“You just wait and see, Detective.” Laura inspected the two sets of hand cuffs that held Lassiter to the arms of the chair now. “I think those should hold you, but I doubt you’ll want to escape once I start this next video. This is all about the times that you were wrong and Shawn was right.” She patted his head like a teacher would to a misbehaving child.  
  
“Yeah, this ought to be a nail biter,” Lassiter grumbled. Maybe he would have to dislocate his thumbs to get out of this after all. It certainly seemed more enjoyable than the alternative.


	6. Chapter 6

Shawn sipped on his pineapple, strawberry, banana smoothie and search the campground for any sign of Laura. “You know, Gus, it’s a good thing they have this warning on the cup. What if I had a strawberry allergy and ordered a pineapple, strawberry, banana smoothie, not realizing that it might contain strawberries?”  
  
“Don’t you think that we should be focusing on finding Lassiter instead of making fun of redundant warnings on smoothie cups?” Gus snapped at him.  
  
“Gus, don’t be the one box of Lucky Charms without a secret decoder ring. We are looking for Lassie,” Shawn protested.  
  
“Really? Because it seems like we haven’t found him yet.”  
  
Shawn sighed and looked around the deserted campground. “I will admit that Laura has hidden him very craftily, but I will also admit that I have a secret weapon.”  
  
“Which is what?” Gus asked, his disbelief evident.  
  
“This.” Shawn waved his cell phone at Gus. “She will answer if I call. I’m like Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams.”  
  
“But instead of baseball players, you attract crazy stalker girls.”  
  
“If I call her, she will come.” Shawn gave Gus a smirk and then dialed Laura’s number.

* * *

Lassiter was on alert as soon as the crazy girl’s phone rang. She had been texting regularly through out the day - she’d told him it was some nonsense called ‘tweeting’. But this was the first phone call she’d gotten.  
  
Laura glanced at the display on her phone and then let out the highest pitch that Lassiter had ever heard emanate from a human being.  
  
“He’s calling meeeeeee!” she shrieked at the head detective.   
  
Lassiter watched as she checked her appearance in the mirror before answering the phone.  
  
“Hello, Shawn.” The girl’s voice returned to a more normal level, and if Lassiter was going to put an adjective on it he would have to go with attempted sultriness. She listened for a moment and turned to look at Lassiter. “No, nothing’s wrong; Detective Lassiter and I just had a misunderstanding.” She frowned as she listened again.  
  
“Spencer! In the name of Sweet Lady Justice, you had better find me!” Lassiter yelled out, not caring if Laura drugged him again. He was done with being tied up and tortured with tribute songs and movies about the psychic. Once he got out, he would have a few choice words for the consultant, but at the moment Spencer was his only chance at escape.  
  
“No! Shawn, really, Lassie is just joking,” Laura protested into the phone.  
  
Lassiter visibly flinched as the girl used the nickname Spencer called him. “Spencer, she’s crazy, she already drugged me once!” he shouted again to make sure the psychic heard him.  
  
Laura hung up the phone at that point. “No more phone calls if you’re going to behave so rudely, Detective.” She was actually scolding Lassiter.  
  
“Well, when I get out of here, you’re only going to get one more phone call, and you’ll probably want that one to go to a lawyer,” Lassiter replied, glaring at her.  
  
“Shawn once pretended to be a lawyer; I’m sure he would represent me. The charges would be dropped anyway. The judge would see how I’m just trying to educate you for a greater good.”  
  
“Greater good?” Lassiter repeated in disbelief.  
  
“Agree to disagree for the moment, Lassie,” Laura replied, smiling a bit too cheerily for Lassiter’s taste. “Now sit tight. I’m going to go see if Shawn found the cabin yet.”  
  
Lassiter watched Laura disappear up the stairs. If he was going to break his thumbs, it would have to be now. There was no telling when Laura would return. But a little voice in his mind, a little voice that always sounded suspiciously like O’Hara, was telling him to wait a little longer, that Spencer usually came through when needed. Lassiter hoped to get rid of that voice one day, but since Spencer was currently the only thing standing between him and a crazy girl, he would wait.  
  
Laura came back down the stairs, taking them two at a time. “Just in case you try anything again,” she said before she pressed a fresh rag against Lassiter’s face.  
  
The detective fought to keep his mouth and nose out of her reach, but being handcuffed to a chair, there wasn’t much he could do.

* * *

Juliet was on hold with Whispy Pines Campground when McNab came sprinting over to her desk.

“Happy Dale said that Laura Peters signed in with them for a cabin two days ago,” McNab said excitedly.  
  
Juliet hung up her phone and grabbed her gun from her desk. “We’ll have back-up follow us,” she told the rookie as she ran for her car.  
  
“Detective,” McNab was struggling to keep up with her pace, despite his long legs, “what did you ask Shawn and Gus to do? I haven’t seen them since our interrogation.”  
  
Juliet paused as she started to unlock her car. “I told them to ...” She went quiet. “I said the campground names in front of them.” She kicked the front tire of her car in frustration and got in the driver’s seat. “Call their phones and tell them not to do anything stupid until we get there.”

* * *

“Dude, I can’t believe you called her.” Gus was hiding behind a tree, yelling at Shawn in a whisper.  
  
Shawn was standing a few feet away. “What else was I supposed to do?” he whispered back.  
  
“There’s a front office. You could have gone there and gotten them to tell you which cabin she’s using,” Gus told him. “Or you could have told Juliet about the campground and gotten her to tell us. Any number of things besides calling your delusional fan yet again.”  
  
“I only called her once!” Shawn protested, still whispering. “I just texted, emailed and IMed with her before.”  
  
Gus rolled his eyes. “You seriously need to watch some 20/20 or 60 Minutes. People who make creepy websites cannot be trusted!”  
  
A cabin door opened somewhere and immediately both of them flattened themselves against their respective trees. Shawn glanced over at Gus and made a fist. They were going to rock, paper, scissors to see who would dare peek.  
  
They were tied after the first two rounds and about to throw down the third when Laura’s voice cut through the air.  
  
“Shawn? Shawn are you out here?”  
  
Gus shot Shawn a wide-eyed look and frantically shook his head. “Don’t even think about it,” he mouthed to his friend.  
  
Shawn made a face at him and stepped out from behind the trunk. “Laura,” he grinned.  
  
The girl’s eyes lit up brighter than a 90 year-old’s birthday cake. “Shawn!” She skipped across to greet him and awkwardly gave him a hug.  
  
Gus had stepped out from behind his own tree, just in time to see the hug, which was one-sided on Laura’s part. Shawn was facing Gus and gave his friend a panicked look as he let his hands hang in the air, not sure where to put them.  
  
“Laura,” Gus cleared his throat.  
  
“Oh... you brought Gus?” Laura reluctantly let go of Shawn and turned around to look at Gus.  
  
“Laura, where is Detective Lassiter?” Gus fought to put a smile on his face.  
  
“He’s in my cabin,” Laura shrugged. “But he’ll be fine; that chloroform wears off after twenty minutes or so.”  
  
Gus gave Shawn a worried look and pulled him for one of their typical asides. “Chloroform?” he hissed.  
  
“Dude, it’s not like she killed him,” Shawn hissed back.  
  
“Yet, Shawn, she hasn’t killed him yet. You owe me big time for this.” Gus gritted his teeth and the two of them turned around to face Laura again.

* * *

Lassiter started to slowly wake up; the dose of chloroform must not have been too strong, he thought, observing that not much time had passed on the laptop clock. He heard footsteps on the stairs and decided it would be easier to pretend to still be asleep for the moment. He wondered uneasily if Laura had brought her crazy mob with her.  
  
“She did kill him!” he heard Guster exclaim.  
  
“Relax, Gus, I didn’t kill him,” Laura snapped. “He’s just sleeping off the chloroform.”  
  
Lassiter smirked slightly; he doubted Laura was happy that Spencer had brought along his partner.  
  
“It doesn’t look that way to me,” Gus countered as they reached the bottom of the stairs.  
  
“I’m sure... Lassie is fine.” Shawn tried to sound more sure of himself than he felt.  
  
Laura plopped down on the edge of the bed, swinging her legs. “So, what do you guys want to do first? I don’t want to start any new videos before Lassie wakes up. So we could watch some reruns, or we could watch some of your soap opera.”  
  
Shawn glanced over to Lassiter and noticed the detective’s eyelids flicker and his jaw tighten as Laura called him Lassie. “Actually, Laura, we’re here to take Detective Lassiter home. He’s been gone from work for so long that we’re all getting kind of worried.”  
  
Laura pouted. “But you do his job all the time. Can’t you just solve all the cases?”  
  
“I don’t do his job,” Shawn corrected her, at the same time as Lassiter snapped his head up and exclaimed, “He doesn’t do my job!”  
  
“See, Gus, not dead.” Shawn knew the relief in his face was a giveaway of how worried he had been.  
  
Gus didn’t reply, just cleared his throat, recovering from the strangled scream that had escaped him when Lassiter had sat up.  
  
“But you do solve the cases,” Laura frowned, ignoring the commotion.  
  
Shawn sighed and rubbed a hand across his neck. “It’s a team effort.”  
  
“Teams appreciate one another,” Laura clarified, turning to glare at Lassiter.  
  
“Look, we can talk out our feelings all we want, just get me out of these cuffs.” Lassiter pulled against his restraints.  
  
Shawn held out his hand. “Laura, can we please have the keys?”  
  
Laura debated with herself, Shawn could see it in her face, but finally she reached in her back pocket and pulled out two sets of keys.  
  
Lassiter narrowed his eyes as the girl’s shirt lifted up. She was carrying a gun, and it wasn’t the detective’s Kimber he had been carrying around the day she assaulted him. Part of him was relieved. Who knew what the girl would have done with it if she had gotten a hold of his gun?  
  
Shawn thanked Laura and then leaned over Lassiter to unlock the cuffs.  
  
“Spencer,” Lassiter murmured, barely above a whisper. “She’s got a gun.”  
  
“I know,” Shawn murmured back. “Let’s just try to get out of this alive, okay?” He straightened and helped Lassiter stand up from the chair.  
  
“Fine, he’s out of the chair, now can we start the next movie?” Laura half-whined. “The glare from this window gets really bad around three in the afternoon.”  
  
“We should probably get Detective Lassiter looked at by a doctor,” Gus said, noticing the blood-matted hair on the back of the detective’s head.  
  
“You can take him then,” Laura said dismissively. “I’ll stay here with Shawn.”  
  
“I need to drive,” Shawn lied. “Gus will have to ride in the back; Lassie and I both get car sick if we ride in the back.”  
  
Laura gave him a doubtful look but pulled out a notebook and jotted something down in it. “Then no one is going to the doctor.”  
  
“Laura,” Shawn finally let the scolding voice he had learned so well from his dad come into play. “We are taking him to the doctor. Detective Lassiter is the finest detective that Santa Barbara has, and I will not let him suffer brain damage because of a crazy girl who runs a website about me.”  
  
Laura’s eyes darkened immediately. “Crazy?” She gave a half laugh. “You think I’m crazy? Shawn, do you know why I don’t live in San Diego anymore?”  
  
Shawn and Gus slowly shook their heads.  
  
“I’ll tell you.” Her voice was still threatening. “I was told, by a biased judge, that I couldn’t live within two hundred miles of the town or near a certain captain from an awesome, but sadly cancelled, science fiction western.”  
  
“You’re the San Diego Comic Con Stalker?” Shawn let the admiration creep back into his voice. His stalker had good taste.  
  
“Shawn, this is not a time to joke,” Gus protested. “Lassiter probably has a concussion, plus that wound might need stitches.”  
  
“It will,” Lassiter winced as he ran his hand along the back of his head. “She hit me with the butt end of a Glock. That should leave a three to four inch gash.”  
  
“Wait, she has a gun?” Gus glanced over to Laura, who was slowly moving so her back was against the wall.  
  
“Yes, I have a gun.” Laura pulled her weapon out from behind her. “Shawn,” she gave the psychic a sad smile. “I really thought you were the one. We connected so well on our speed date and you always smiled at me at crime scenes. I even sat in line for American Duos tickets for five hours one time so I could watch you perform, and I was behind the crime tape when you went into the bank to save Gus.”  
  
Suddenly it hit Shawn. He had seen Laura before. He had seen her almost a hundred times. She had always blended into the background in his mind. He had seen her at crime scenes for the past five years.  
  
“Dude,” he looked at her, all admiration for her taste or devotion gone. “You were at every crime scene.”  
  
“Almost every,” Laura gave him a smile. “But you probably know that with your eidetic memory.”  
  
“No, this ...” Shawn was rarely speechless, but right now he was having a hard time coming up with the right words.  
  
Lassiter had taken the time to study the room while Laura’s attention was focused on Spencer. She didn’t have his gun, which meant that it was probably somewhere in the room. He spotted it, about a foot to his right on a small coffee table. If he moved slowly, maybe he could reach it before Laura completely snapped.  
  
Shawn saw Lassiter move and decided he had to keep Laura’s attention away from the detective. “Laura,” he paused. “Laura, we could get you some help. I know a really great guy; he’s a sports psychologist, but he’s pretty good.”  
  
“Or there’s Dr. Ken Tucker,” Gus muttered.  
  
Shawn kicked his friend in the shin. “No, I don’t think Dr. Tucker has what Laura needs.”  
  
Laura pointed her gun at Shawn. “Tell me, Shawn, what do I need?”  
  
“A swift kick to the pants,” Lassiter said, a little more bold now that he had his own gun in his hands.  
  
Laura began to turn to look at Lassiter, but was distracted by the blue and red flashing lights that filtered in through the small opening in the curtain.  
  
“You called the cops?” Laura looked hurt as she refocused on Shawn.  
  
To Lassiter, the next scene happened in slow motion. It probably was his concussion screwing with his perception, but he swore time seemed to stand still.  
  
Laura cocked her gun, and that’s when Lassiter moved. He crossed the room, gun in hand, as quickly as he could, putting himself between the psychic and the girl with the gun, and fired.

* * *

Juliet jumped out of the car almost before she put it in park. She and Buzz were on the porch of the cabin the owner of the campground had told them Laura had rented. Her hand was on the door knob when she heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire, followed by the even more distinct sound of her partner yelling out in pain.


	7. Chapter 7

The moment Laura cocked her gun, Lassiter moved to stand between her and the two consultants.  
  
“Laura, you really don’t want to do this,” Shawn told her, trying to see around Lassiter.  
  
“No, Shawn, I really think I do,” Laura snapped back.  
  
“Miss Peters, put down the gun and this will all end well,” Lassiter instructed, his voice low and steady, just like he had learned in his negotiations class in the academy.  
  
“Detective Lassiter,” Laura said, the disdain evident in her voice, “I suggest you move. It appears that Shawn is not the man I thought he was.”  
  
“He’s not the man you wished he was,” Lassiter corrected her in the same low voice. “But Spencer is rarely what others wish he was.”  
  
“Oh just shut up!” Laura yelled, her hands shaking. “Stop trying to talk me down! I have a gun and I’m going to shoot it.”  
  
Lassiter knew he had one chance to fire and he took it; the problem was Laura took that same chance.  
  
Pain ripped through Lassiter’s shoulder as the bullet hit him and involuntarily he cried out. He didn’t know where he had hit the girl, but her painful yelp confirmed that he had.  
  
“Lassie, Lassie are you okay?” Shawn asked, his eyes wide, trying to talk to the detective over Gus’ girly scream.  
  
“Son of a-” Lassiter grumbled and then his legs gave out on him and the room disappeared.

* * *

The moment Juliet heard gunfire, she entered the cabin, gun drawn. Buzz was right behind her. They cleared the small first floor and headed down the stairs to the basement.  
  
“SBPD!” Juliet announced, taking the stairs as quickly as possible.  
  
“Juliet!” Gus yelled, looking up from where he was dialing his cell phone.  
  
“Gus, are you guys okay?” Juliet stopped short at the bottom of the stairs, causing Buzz to nearly run into her.  
  
“No, we’re not okay!” Gus protested, the worry showing in his face as he waited for the phone to connect to the tower.  
  
“Oh, Carlton,” Juliet tried to shove aside the worst case scenarios that were flashing through her mind as she saw Shawn leaning over her partner.  
  
“Laura, freeze.” Buzz had his gun still trained on Laura who was now sitting on the bed, her gun next to her.  
  
When Buzz said her name, Laura seemed to snap out of her daze. Her leg was bleeding where Lassiter’s bullet had grazed her, but it had barely cut through the fabric of her jeans. She looked around at the commotion.  
  
“Cuff her, Buzz.” Juliet’s voice was harsh.  
  
Shawn stood up. “No, no, I got it.” He motioned for Buzz to continue applying pressure to Lassiter’s shoulder.  
  
He pulled one of the sets of handcuffs from his back pocket and approached Laura.  
  
“We would have been great, Shawn,” she told him with a smile as she watched the scene around her, seemingly oblivious to the cuffs in his hand.  
  
“Let’s agree to disagree,” he said, grabbing first the gun from beside her and then reaching for her wrist.  
  
The physical contact woke Laura up completely.   
  
“Hold still,” Shawn grunted as she fought against him.   
  
“No! I can’t go, not like this!” she protested, kicking at him with her legs.  
  
Juliet rushed over to assist Shawn, but couldn’t get close with all the flailing limbs.  
  
“Stop it!” Shawn yelled at Laura as she managed to punch him in the jaw, knocking him backwards.  
  
Finally Shawn got a grip on Laura’s arms and Juliet slapped the cuffs on her.   
  
“Buzz, take her up to the car. She can sit tight there until the EMTs arrive.” Juliet hadn’t been able to check on her partner, and his unconscious state was worrying her.  
  
“Roger,” Buzz said quietly, leading the girl upstairs in front of him.  
  
“The ambulance is five minutes out,” Gus told them, watching Laura carefully as she passed, as if expecting her to try and attack him as well.  
  
Juliet nodded as she took over keeping pressure on the gun shot. “I don’t think it hit anything vital,” she said, mostly to herself. “He’ll be fine.”  
  
Shawn took a seat on the bed, rubbing his sore jaw. “I’m sorry,” he said out loud. “I don’t know if Lassie can hear me or not, but I’m sorry.”  
  
Gus and Juliet both looked over to him.  
  
“I got us all in this mess. I promise the next time I find someone who wants to stalk me, I won’t email, IM, call, text or contact them in any way.”  
  
“You’d better not or so help me, Shawn I will find a different job,” Gus told him. “And who says there’s going to be another one?” he added worriedly.  
  
There were more flashing lights outside the window and then the sound of several people coming down the stairs.  
  
“Officer down!” Juliet called to them. “Single gunshot wound to the shoulder, but he might have a concussion from yesterday.”  
  
“We’ll take care of him, ma’am,” one of the EMTs assured her, gently moving her over to the side so they could transport Lassiter to the hospital.

* * *

It was almost four hours later before Shawn and Gus had given their statements and were told they could leave the station.  
  
“You know, buddy,” Shawn said as they headed up the stairs from the interrogation rooms. “I think I’m done with the whole fan base thing. I mean, who needs to be idolized by a bunch of girls to feel good about themselves?”  
  
“You know that’s right.” Gus gave him a fist bump.  
  
As they reached the top of the stairs, they passed three girls heading for the front door. The moment the trio saw the two consultants, they started whispering and giggling.  
  
“Huh, that’s weird.” Shawn cocked his head to the side as he watched them.  
  
“They probably know a perfectly round head when they see one.” Gus ran a hand along the top of his head.  
  
Juliet came up next to them and followed their line of sight. “Them? No, those are Shawn’s fangirls from earlier. We needed to get written statements from them as well.”  
  
“It’s just a little creepy,” Shawn sighed.  
  
“Speaking of creepy, what will happen to Laura?” Gus asked.  
  
“Well, she won’t be charged with murder. Lassiter is stabilized in the hospital; the bullet only hit muscle, so he’ll be back to work in a couple of weeks. But she did assault a police officer and abduct him from his home. She held him against his will for more than 24 hours and she violated at least two of her restraining orders by being in Goleta.”   
  
“So we’re looking at twenty to life with no chance of parole?” Shawn asked hopefully.  
  
“Close; she’ll be put through therapy for her problems and when she’s done with that, the judge will reevaluate her case. The DA wants to make sure she won’t get off on an insanity plea.”  
  
“Just so long as she doesn’t love Shawn Spencer as much when she gets out, I think we’ll all be better off.” Shawn told them. “Speaking of, I have something I need to go do. Rain check on the smoothies?” He looked at Gus and then headed for the door.  
  
“I’d better go, too. I don’t think Shawn realizes that I drove,” Gus clarified for Juliet. He hurried after his friend and almost ran into Shawn as the psychic doubled back.  
  
“Jules, there’s one other thing. I know that Lassie is in the hospital and he’s probably really mad at me, but can you let him know that I didn’t mean for him to get kidnapped and beaten up?”  
  
“I think he knows that, Shawn,” she smiled.  
  
“Well, maybe, but you know our Lassie; he is one to hold a grudge.”  
  
“The man actually has a physical crap list,” Gus pointed out.  
  
“I’ll make sure he knows how much you care,” Juliet promised.  
  
Shawn made a face. “I don’t think you should use the word ‘care’. In fact, let’s just forget this conversation ever happened.”  
  
“So you don’t want me to apologize to Lassiter?” Juliet looked confused.  
  
“No,” Shawn was trying to think up a way to apologize to Lassiter without sharing feelings. “Apologize, but don’t use the word care.”  
  
Juliet shook her head. “I’ll think of something,”  
  
“Thank you, Jules, you’re the best!” Shawn stuck his hand out for a fistbump.

* * *

Two weeks later, Lassiter was back at work, his arm in a sling, but he had worked in those conditions before. Miraculously, Spencer hadn’t been called on any cases and Lassiter was enjoying his psychic-free week.  
  
“Lassifrass, Juliet, I have something to show you!” The grating, happy voice of Shawn Spencer echoed through the bull pen.  
  
Lassiter’s grip on his coffee mug tightened and he turned to see the psychic striding towards him. “What is it, Spencer?” he ground out.  
  
“Look, I’m not here to solve a case; I’m here to show you guys something on the internet. Lassie’s got his own fan site now!”  
  
“Shawn!” Juliet’s voice was worried.  
  
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Shawn assured them, noticing that most of the color had drained from Lassiter’s face.  
  
“We came to show you the end of ShawnSpencer .net,” Gus told them.  
  
“I divined Laura’s password and left one last parting journal entry on the front page.” Shawn pulled up the site on Juliet’s computer.

* * *

_Dear Spencerites,_  
 __  
I used to think that I would be flattered to have people refer to themselves after my name, but after the events of the last week I’ve decided that you should not call yourselves Spencerites, but people, just people.  
  
The road to celebrity status is fraught with peril and I learned that firsthand when one fan, many of you know her as Laura, took things too far and hurt a colleague of mine.  
  
I’m urging you to put down your twisted pencils that write stories such as “Shawn and the Red Balloon Romance” - that one was just wrong. Please, go out and enjoy life with someone that is real.  
  
Before you do, I would like to note that I find it hilarious that Laura always wrote about us together in bed, but the one chance she got, she punched me in the face and got herself arrested.  
  
But to more serious place. This is the end of SS .net. Never again will it be updated and never again will these stories be read. I will be deleting the archive and leaving only this post as a warning to others who might try to stalk me.  
  
\- Shawn

* * *

“That was ...” Juliet tried to find the right words.  
  
“Disturbing,” Lassiter grumbled.  
  
“Lassie, I understand that wounds heal all time, but just take this as an olive branch and we’ll get back to our normal selves in no time.” Shawn rested a hand on the detective’s good shoulder.  
  
No one even bothered to correct Shawn’s wording on the old saying. Lassiter stepped to the side and out of the psychic’s reach.  
  
“I’m just glad Laura got herself arrested,” Gus muttered, staring at the banner across the top of the web site. “No one who makes a banner like that should be allowed among the public.”  
  
“Agreed,” the other three chorused as they looked at the picture of Shawn’s hands and ankles sprawled across the top of the computer screen.  
  
“Though, it does show that I really could be a model,” Shawn pointed out.  
  
Lassiter rolled his eyes and headed back to his desk.  
  
Juliet gave them a small smile. “I’m just glad you’re okay,” she said before hurrying off to file her reports.  
  
“Why didn’t you tell them you made me write that post?” Gus asked after the detectives were out of earshot.  
  
“Because, it sounded like me,” Shawn protested. “My witty and charming manner, combined with the irony of the bed thing.”  
  
“You know you didn’t actually divine her password. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out it was your name and birthday.”  
  
“I know, I know that all too well buddy. The fifteen minutes it took me to realize that were embarrassing.”  
  
“You still owe me,” Gus muttered heading for the door. “For the smoothies and for dragging me into all of this.”  
  
“Technically Laura dragged us into all of this, especially Lassie. She physically dragged him around ...” Shawn trailed off as he glanced at Lassiter’s desk.  
  
“Shawn, are you coming or not?”  
  
“Just a second, buddy.” Shawn held out a hand. “Lassie!” he called, lifting his other hand to his temple.  
  
Lassiter looked up from his desk and raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Spencer?”  
  
“The girl with the sweet purple shoes is your culprit. She was probably stealing the money to pay back her college loan.”   
  
Lassiter frowned and then looked down at his file and back up at the psychic.  
  
“It’s true, you’d better believe me. I have all the answers.” Shawn grinned and hurried to catch up with Gus.  
  
Lassiter glared at Spencer’s retreating back and then looked back to his case report. He muttered a few curses under his breath and then reached for his phone. “McNab, have a couple of uniforms pick up the secretary from the burglary case I’m working. I need to ask her a few questions.”


End file.
